paying

Dubai was a mecca for expats. Now they are driving 10 hours and paying thousands of dollars for a flight to escape from there

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Iran has shown it needs very little to upend Middle East air traffic and hit the United Arab Emirates (UAE) where it hurts the most: the image of reliability that has been built for years at an international level, with great benefitsby the way. The wave of attacks launched by Tehran to neighboring countries that facilitate US military deployment in the region, such as Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait or the UAE itself, has affected thousands of flights and left a curious image: expats desperate to leave Dubai. There are those who are shelling out large sums to fly on private jets and those who have even driven 10 hours to get to Riyadh and get on a plane there. What has happened? If Tehran wanted to damage the image of stability of neighbors like the UAE, it was completely right. Although the country managed to intercept most of the drones and missiles launched by Iran, the truth is that some of the projectiles reached Dubai, the tourist and financial heart of the region. In practice, this translated into fires in luxury hotels, towers with windows shattered by explosions, a knocked out airport and, above all, considerable reputational damage for a city that has spent years building the image of a safe and comfortable destination for expats. Sums it up beautifully Elizabeth Rayment, a consultant caught off guard by the Iranian attack in Palm Islands: “You never expect to hear missiles flying overhead in Dubai.” Have there been more consequences? Yes. The most serious are undoubtedly the victims. Arab News I was talking yesterday about three deceased and 58 injured in the United Arab Emirates. There are not many if you take into account that the country’s authorities claim to have detected a total of 156 ballistic missiles and several cruise missiles, in addition to more than half a thousand drones, most of them intercepted and destroyed. The other consequence is the chaos generated in air traffic in the Persian Gulf, where some airports and airlines have had to suspend their operations, affecting both customers in the region and others who had planned to pass through Dubai, Abu Dhabi or Qatar to take connecting flights between Europe and Asia. Have many been cancelled? FlightAware estimates that around 2,800 operations and on Sunday more than 3,1500. Added to these are the flights canceled and suspended today by Gulf airlines. For reference, Financial Times assured this morning that more than half of the services that had been booked for today in the region have been cancelled. The Iranian attacks have altered to a greater or lesser extent the programming of Emirates, Etihad Airways and Qatar Airways and the airports of Dubai, Doha and Abu Dhabi, as well as other terminals in Kuwait and Bahrain. The BBC has chatted with travelers who have found flights canceled upon arriving at the terminal. There are those who already talk about the biggest crisis aviation since the pandemic. How do I leave the country? That is the question that expats and tourists have been asking themselves since Saturday. The Iranian attacks have surprised them in the region and now they find that there are few (or no) regular flights that take them to other parts of the globe. Faced with such a scenario, there are those who have armed themselves with patience, those who have drawn on their checkbook and those who have resigned themselves to traveling kilometers and kilometers to reach airports with flights. So I told it a few hours ago FTwhich speaks of “tens of thousands of passengers” stranded in the region and assures that there are Dubai residents who have traveled to neighboring Oman to get a flight. What’s more, some have even driven 10 hours to get on a plane in Riyadh. They don’t have it easy. Most scheduled flights these days between Muscat (Oman) and Europe are reserved. And what do they do? The wealthiest, pull out their checkbook and try their luck with private jet companies. EnterJet, which is dedicated to intermediating between customers and available planes, says that reservations have skyrocketed 40% since the weekend. The problem is that the sector also has its limitations. Its founder explains to Financial Times that “the only viable option” to operate is the Muscat terminal, which makes it difficult to obtain landing slots. Added to this are the difficulties in finding ships. The businessman hopes that as traffic recovers in the Gulf, private flights will increase. Are they very expensive? The situation in the Gulf has caused a curious effect: while the price of airlines such as International Airlines Group or Air France-KLM they resent the price of private services skyrockets. The JetVip agency (Oman) explains to Guardian that a flight to Istanbul on a small Nextant jet costs around 85,000 euros, about three times the normal price. The same media reveals that seats on private charter flights to Moscow are paid for about 20,000 euros… per person. Rates vary depending on the company, but they usually always range in the five digits, or even more. It may sound strange, but we must keep in mind that Donald Trump has hinted that the offensive against Iran could continue even further. “four weeks” and the question remains as to how Tehran will respond. Added to this is that over the last few years the UAE has managed to position itself as a priority destination for thousands of expatsa position largely based on reliability and stability that Tehran has now managed to damage with missiles. Images | Michael Ranzau (Flickr) In Xataka | The arrival of the B-2s to Iran can only mean one thing: the search for the greatest threat to the United States has begun

Is it worth paying extra to spin faster?

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Life takes many turns, but not as many as a washing machine. If you start looking at a washing machine, it’s normal that your eyes will focus on the capacity or the price. But, what are those RPMs that they put on their technical sheet? It is not just another number, but it has its importance. Because a washing machine with a higher RPM has, in most cases, an even higher price. Is it worth spending more to have more RPM in your new washing machine? Since there is no simple answer, I am going to explain to you what it means for a washing machine to have more or less RPM. And if it’s worth spending that extra. Faster is not always better. The same thing happens inside your washing machine. When a washing machine finishes the wash cycle, everything in the drum is dripping with water. At that moment it is the turn of the centrifuge, that thing that makes a washing machine look like it’s going to fly away. Basically, the drum begins to rotate at a very high speed, causing the clothes, sheets or whatever we have put in the washing machine to stick to the walls of the drum. So that? So that the water comes out through the holes in the drum due to centrifugal force. Now that we know what the spin of a washing machine does, it’s time to talk about the RPM or revolutions per minute. There is not much mystery here: it is a unit of measurement that is used to know, in this case, how many revolutions does the drum make per minute. These are impressive figures, since if the cycle we use in the washing machine spins at 1,200 RPM, it means that the drum makes 20 revolutions per second. Numbers aside, what does more or less RPM mean when spinning? The higher the number of revolutions per minute of the drum, the greater the centrifugal force that is generated and, therefore, the greater the amount of water that is extracted from the clothes. So, in short, choosing a very high RPM number in our wash cycle will make the clothes come out with much less water. This is ideal if you put in a load of laundry and want it to be dry as soon as possible. Or even if you are going to use the dryer later, because if the clothes come out with less water, you will be able to use the dryer for less time. If we stop there, logic will tell us that it is better to use 1,400 or 1,600 RPM to remove dry or almost dry clothes from the washing machine. Spoiler: it is not like that. These types of spins make a lot more noise, so you don’t want to run them at night. Besides, they make clothes come out very wrinkledso it’s time to have a good time with iron in hand. It’s not that you have to worry about using it a few times, but in the long run, 1,400 or 1,600 RPM causes the fibers of the clothing to wear out much faster, so your clothes will be damaged. And what remains is what affects our pocket: Using these RPMs causes the washing machine’s consumption to increase a little. It’s not a drama, especially since then you will have to use the dryer less time (which uses a lot more) or use the clothesline less time. However, it is something to keep in mind because it adds to the higher price of the washing machine. The good and the bad of both options, face to face 1,200 RPM 1,400 or 1,600 RPM THE GOOD 🟢 It’s cheaper and will make your clothes suffer less. Your clothes will come out practically dry, so your laundry will be ready sooner. THE BAD 🔴 It will take you longer to dry your clothes (even with a dryer) They make more noise and clothes suffer more. It will also appear more wrinkled. Ideal for: Homes that air dry clothes and take great care of each garment Humid climates where air drying clothes is torture or for families who do a lot of laundry We do the math to see which one can compensate you more. As you can see, Both have advantages and disadvantages. Choosing the spin speed will almost always depend on the type of clothing or fabric that we put in the washing machinebut here the question is whether it is worth having that extra that 1,400 or 1,600 RPM gives you. Above all, because a washing machine is an appliance with a very long useful life. You are going to live with her for many years, so it is better to choose well. If at home you tend to blow dry and don’t use the dryer too much, With a 1,200 RPM washing machine you will have plenty. Because? Actual use: You don’t have the highest spin power, but you do have a balanced and sufficient one for most people. So?: You spend less on your new washing machine and you still have enough spin to remove clothes with little water. And, in the long run, you will take better care of your clothes. However, in a humid area such as northern Spain, you will know what an ordeal it is to dry your clothes outdoors. If we add to this intensive use of the dryer and you put so many loads in a week that you don’t have room to hang everything, then You may be interested in opting for a washing machine with 1,400 or 1,600 RPM. Because? Actual use: You live in an area where it is (almost) impossible to dry clothes because of the humidity and you want to use the dryer as little as possible. So?: You spend a little more, but you will take the clothes out of the washing machine practically dry. A blow of the dryer and you will … Read more

Big Tech is paying up to $600,000 to influencers to promote their AI. Now the race is about perception

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Big technology companies are deploying their heavy artillery to attract users for their artificial intelligence services. Just like they count From CNBC, Microsoft and Google have found their new battlefield in influencers, with contracts that reach six-digit figures. The dimension of the phenomenon. According to data from Sensor Tower, generative AI platforms spent more than $1 billion on digital advertising in the United States during 2025, an increase of 126% compared to the previous year. That large companies promote their products through influencers is nothing new, and it is also a business that is very profitable for them, since by investing a small fraction of their budget they can get an avalanche of new users. According to CNBC, in order to attract new users for their AI services, Microsoft, Google, Anthropic and Meta They are hiring content creators to promote your tools on social networks. Figures. Microsoft and Google are paying between $400,000 and $600,000 to content creators for multi-month collaborations, according to sources close to the media. These contracts are not limited to specific publications, since according to the medium, they seek to ensure that influencers integrate AI tools into their usual content, tutorials and workflows. “We’re seeing a massive increase in creator spending from these AI brands. We’re getting a lot more interest from AI brands every month,” counted to AJ Eckstein, founder of Creator Match (an agency that connects brands with creators). How these agreements work. Collaborations range from LinkedIn posts explaining how to use Claude Code even videos on Instagram showing functions of Microsoft Copilot or the assistant Comet by Perplexity. Megan Lieu, AI and technology content creator with nearly 400,000 followers, explains told CNBC that his sponsored deals typically range from $5,000 to $30,000 depending on the campaign. Its most important collaboration to date has been with Anthropic to promote products from Claudealthough he did not specify the exact figure to the media. Some influencers can charge up to $100,000 per post, according to Eckstein. The other side of the coin. Despite the astronomical numbers, not all content creators are willing to jump on the AI ​​bandwagon. Jack Lepiarz, known as Jack the Whipper and with more than 7 million followers between YouTube, TikTok and Instagram, account to the medium that systematically rejects any agreement related to artificial intelligence. “I cannot with a clear conscience support something that is going to make it difficult for normal people to earn a living,” he declared to the outlet. Lepiarz previously turned down a $20,000 contract to promote AI imaging tools and says even $100,000 or $500,000 wouldn’t change his mind. Perception with Copilot. For Microsoft, these influencer campaigns can be especially key. And despite its large user base in Microsoft 365 services, only 3.3% pay for Copilotas told from Windows Central. The company needs its AI assistant, integrated into Windows, Microsoft 365 and Edge, to be perceived as a natural tool in daily work, and at the moment it is being especially difficult for them to achieve that. It’s public time. Big Tech hiring influencers occurs precisely at a time when companies are investing more than ever in advertising their AI tools. A few days ago we told precisely the case of Anthropic, which spent a million on ads during the Super Bowl. Separately, Google and Microsoft increased their digital advertising spending to promote AI products by approximately 495% last month compared to the previous year, according to Sensor Tower. The media also says that OpenAI multiplied its advertising investment tenfold in 2025. After years of making its tools known, it is now time to shape our perception of them. Cover image | aerps and Hillary Black In Xataka | The person who is earning the most money on Twitch by broadcasting 24 hours a day is not a person: it is an AI

The robotaxis did not need a driver, but Waymo has ended up paying delivery drivers to close ajar doors

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What until not long ago seemed the exclusive province of science fiction is beginning to become visible on the streets: cars capable of moving from one point to another without a driver. And you don’t need to buy one to live the experience. In some cities around the world, it is enough to order a robotaxi from an application and see how the vehicle arrives to pick you up, identifying you in certain models with your initials on an LED screen located on the roof, as our colleague Javier Lacort confirmed in San Francisco almost two years ago. Futuristic scene, present problems. In the midst of this transformation of transportation, which aims to offer more safety and comfort, its weak points are also beginning to emerge. We don’t talk about the jams caused by connectivity failures nor of those cars that, for some reason, They start honking their horn at four in the morning. The issue is even more basic: if a user closes the door incorrectly, the vehicle cannot continue operating. The problem is not driving, it is being able to leave. In the case described by CNBC and TechCrunchare blocked if, at the end of the trip, a passenger leaves a door ajar. Waymo confirmed to both media that this detail prevents the car from resuming travel and completing new routes until someone closes it correctly. This is a basic, almost domestic friction that turns a simple oversight into an operational problem and explains why the company has to resort to human support to return its vehicles to service as soon as possible. Pay delivery people. The company is testing a system in Atlanta that alerts nearby delivery drivers of applications such as DoorDash when one of their vehicles is left with the door open. The proposal is simple: approach, close it and allow the robotaxi to operate again. The media even cites the case of a driver who was offered $11.25 for that specific task. They also detail a similar order divided between $6.25 for travel and another $5 after verifying the closure. It is not an isolated case. The Atlanta pilot is not the only example of this specific dependence on human help. Waymo has also turned to users of honka roadside assistance platform, to resolve similar situations in other American cities. In this case, some collaborators received offers of up to $24 to close the door of a stopped robotaxi. More than a local anecdote, these examples draw a clear operational pattern: when the vehicle is immobilized due to a minor detail, the quickest solution is still to send a person. Automatic doors, on the way. Today Waymo operates with a fleet made up entirely of electric vehicles Jaguar I-PACE adapted for autonomous driving, which still depend on human intervention in situations like this. But the company owned by Google assures that this gap has an expiration date, although without specifying it: it announced that its future robotaxis will have automatic closing. Meanwhile, the present of the autonomous car continues to show that double face: sophistication in driving and human dependence on the simplest details. Images | Xataka In Xataka | When San Francisco suffered a blackout, its streets were plunged into chaos for a reason: dumped self-driving cars

A town in Burgos has resorted to a desperate idea to get people to stay there: paying them for food

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Cardeñajimeno is a small town from the Alfoz de Burgos region, in Castilla y León, where just under 1,200 residents live. Its city council is not willing to let that figure drop and has decided to tackle the challenge of depopulation by making it as easy as possible for its inhabitants, especially the elderly. As? Cooking for them and bringing food to their doorstep. Whatever it takes to escape from an “emptied Spain” that has been going on for decades. expanding your footprint through the peninsula, with the challenge what that entails. Objective: establish population. Spain may move in record population numbers, with 49.4 million of censuses as of October 1, 2025, but that does not mean that the entire territory is going through its best demographic moment. On the contrary. The ‘record Spain’ also hides a ‘Spain emptied’ that has spent decades spreading its footprint across the peninsula, feeding on municipalities that have been gradually depopulated. I warned him Before the pandemic, the Spanish Rural Development Network (REDR) recalled that in a matter of two decades the number of towns with less than one hundred neighbors had increased by 60%. A similar message The Galician Accounts Council was launched in 2024, remembering that a hundred towns in the region face the risk of becoming ghost towns. How to avoid it? That’s the million dollar question. In an attempt to fix the population and not swell the map of emptied Spain, over the last few years the administrations have racked their brains looking for solutions. Some offer financial aid to attract new residents. There are town councils that they are taking charge of local businesses (gas stations or grocery stores) to prevent their neighbors from being left without basic services. And not long ago we even told you about a remote town in the province of Soria that reached offer house and business in an attempt to attract new blood. Making it easy. In Cardeñajimeno (province of Burgos), they have gone one step further to make it as easy as possible for its inhabitants and prevent the elderly from packing their bags to move to larger towns. As? Taking care of your diet. The news has advanced it Burgos Connectwhich on Saturday revealed that two populations in the region “will pay for food” to their elders to stop the depopulation that is shaking part of the community. “Encourage permanence”. The towns in question are those that make up the municipality of Burgos: Cardeñajimeno and San Medel. A few days ago its Consistory launched a tender to look for professionals interested in providing a “catering service to elderly people” residing in the town. The goal? “Promote the elderly person’s permanence in their usual environment and avoid depopulation.” In other words, provide the necessary means so that no elderly person from Cardeñajimeno or San Medel is forced to move to Burgos or another larger town in search of comforts. But… Is it necessary? The case of Cardeñajimeno is interesting because it shows that rural Spain not only faces the challenge of depopulation, it also deals with aging. Although the situation of the town is far from being critical (the INE counts there 1,185 registeredbelow the 1,205 in 2022, but significantly above those recorded two decades ago), it does not escape the trend of the rest of Spain. 20% of its population is over 60 years old and dozens of octogenarians and nonagenarians reside in the town. “Nutritional well-being”. With the new service, the City Council wants to “provide nutritional and physical well-being to all those elderly who, given their special situation, require it.” To achieve this, it even contemplates that the company prepares “different diets” adapted to users with special needs. For example, diabetics or people who need crushed food. The base tender budget is 16,500 euros for one year, with a maximum price per menu of 9.6 euros, but the specifications also clarify that the final price will depend on the acceptance of the service, its users and how much food they request. On the State contracting platform the budget Estimated is 30,000. In other locations are already offered similar benefits. Image | Wikipedia In Xataka | Empty Spain is now officially one of the quietest places on the planet. There is no risk that it will cease to be

ChatGPT urgently needs its users to start paying money. Solution: put ads on them

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It was inevitable. OpenAI has confirmed that is going to start testing ads on ChatGPT. The test will begin in the United States with users of free plans, those who have ChatGPT Plus, Pro or Enterprise are exempt for the moment. It is a movement that marks the beginning of a reality that was seen coming: The user experience of free AIs is about to get worse. All for the AGI. Through your X profileOpenAI has shared what those ads will look like and is striking in the heading of its “advertising principles.” Here they say their mission is “to ensure that AGI benefits all of humanity; our pursuit of publicity always supports that mission and makes AI more accessible.” how he jokes Pedro Domingos in Xit seems that the AGI was actually “Ad-Generated Income”, that is, “Income generated by advertising.” Where I said I say…. The AGI is becoming the excuse for everything. To find the true reasons behind this decision, it is enough to look at OpenAI numbers. Or also we can go back to 2024when Sam Altman said that ads on ChatGPT are “the last resort for our business model.” Saying that everything is part of a plan for the benefit of humanity is better than admitting that the AI ​​race is very expensive and OpenAI desperately needs to monetize its AI. This sounds familiar to us. The situation is quite reminiscent of the case of Netflix, which In 2020 he flatly refused to advertising, stating that it was a way to “exploit users” to two years later launch your plan with ads. Since then the streaming experience began to deteriorate and everything indicates that we are at the beginning of exactly the same thing happening with AI. Advertising as punishment. Before, ads were a way to generate income. Today they also function as a pressure tool to push users to pay a subscription. This is what we find on YouTube or Spotify, where the bombardment of ads is constant, repetitive and very intrusive. We pay to end the torture. Objective: subscriptions. ChatGPT has 1.8 billion users, but the reality is that only 5% are subscribed to one of their payment plans. How to increase this figure? If we don’t subscribe ourselves, maybe a few ads will convince us. OpenAI has been the first, but there are also rumors that Google will integrate ads into Gemini. The AI ​​party does not pay for itself, it is a matter of time. There is a loophole. If the big chatbots turn their free versions into a minefield of ads, we will always have the option of use local models such as DeepSeek, Mistral, Llama or ChatGPT itself. Here we get rid of token limits, queues and also ads. The bad part is that the performance is usually lower than the cloud and it also has fewer integrations. Time will tell if they end up being a better alternative. Image | OpenAI In Xataka | Generative AI opens its gap between those who focus on it locally and those who focus on the cloud. There is room for both

Movistar, Orange and Vodafone are going to raise prices in 2026. You still have time to do something to avoid paying more

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Unfortunately for users, it has already become a tradition: every year around this time, the three operators begin to notify their customers of the price increases that they will come into force in January. And 2026 is not going to be an exception. The first to report it It was Movistarthen Orange followed and shortly after It was Vodafone’s turn. They are all preparing an update to their upward rates for the first weeks of 2026 that will directly impact the pockets of millions of households. The increase is not the same in all rates, but in some cases, it may mean pay up to 6 euros more per month. The good news is that we still have time to take measures to avoid it. It all depends on whether you are willing to continue paying for services that you may no longer need. Image: Xataka On January 8, Vodafone prices rise. Although last year Zegona, the owner of Vodafone Spain, allowed to avoid the inertia of the increases linked to the CPIin 2026 prices will rise again. And this time they will not be linked to the CPI, but will exceed the expected inflation (close to 3%) to reach an average of 4%. The increase affects almost everyone: from those who only have a mobile line, who will pay 1 euro more per month, to families with complete convergent packages, whose fee will increase between 3 and 5 euros per month. In addition, you will pay 1 extra euro for each additional line and another extra euro for each contracted streaming platform. Ancillary services such as Secure Net, One Number or MultiSIM maintain their prices. Orange rates rise on January 12. Orange packages will suffer a weighted average increase of around 3.8%. For example, customers who have contracted the Fiber pack with one or two unlimited lines will pay 5 euros more per month. Also those with the Cinema and Series package, both with one mobile line and two. Football fans will be worse off, since the Football and Cinema packages will increase by 6 euros per month, regardless of whether you have one or two mobile lines. Image: Movistar Movistar customers have their turn a day later. The customers who will notice the increase the most are those who have 1 Gbps fiber rates and unlimited mobile line services. For example, the 1 Gbps fiber and unlimited mobile package plus an additional line increases from 63 to 65 euros per month, and the option with two unlimited lines increases from 80 to 83 euros. The basic Movistar Plus+ package with deco increases by one euro, from 13 to 14 euros. What remains the same are the entry rates, such as the basic package with 600 Mbps Fiber and mobile with 60 GB, which remains at 53 euros per month. The date on which the new prices will come into effect is January 13, 2026. Why do operators raise prices? The justification for these price increases by Movistar, Orange and Vodafone is very similar and always revolves around investment and quality of service. As they are “premium” operators, they do not limit themselves to giving you connectivity, but offer the latest technologies (WiFi 7, 5G+, 10 Gbps fiber…) and an entire ecosystem of services, such as alarms, insurance, telemedicine, etc. To this we must add television with a decoder, agreements with third parties to integrate their content and the high cost of football in the case of Orange and Movistar. In fact, the three operators hide behind the increase in costs on the part of providers and their desire to continue offering varied and quality content. You have the right to cancel the contract. Operators are obliged to communicate any modification to the contract (a price increase is one) at least one month in advance of its entry into force. In all three cases, the new prices will be applied, as we have seen, in the first days of January. Hence, customers are now receiving the relevant notices. Even if you have a current contract, the unilateral modification of the conditions by the operator gives you the right to terminate the contract and change companies at no cost, as long as you do so before the date of entry into force of the new prices and that you are not paying for a device in installments. If you receive the notice and do nothing, the operator legally assumes that you accept the new conditions. Therefore, December is the perfect time to analyze your day-to-day needs and check the options you have both within your current operator. like in the competition. On mobile phones, for example, there is a golden rule that recommends hiring a rate that offers your average consumption plus a 20% margin. On fiber, you may be able to lower the speed, and on television, you may not need as many platforms or content packages. Cover image | Xataka In Xataka | Telefónica does not buy Vodafone or Digi for now, but it already has a plan: one in which mergers are necessary In Xataka | For the first time in decades, Telefónica can freely decide with whom it shares its network. And that changes the entire Spanish market

How to watch YouTube without ads and in the background without paying for YouTube Premium or installing fake apps

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Let’s tell you How can you watch YouTube without ads on your mobile or computerand even with the option to watch the videos in the background. These are features available to paying users on YouTube Premiumbut we are going to tell you how to do it without paying. We are going to do this using third-party apps, but without resorting to fake applications or those that are a modified YouTube and that expose you to privacy dangers. Nor are they the apps to listen to music on YouTube as if it were Spotify. Some browsers will help you with this There are three key functions that YouTube Premium offers you, which is to watch videos without ads, listen to their audio in the background, or even use the mode Qicture-in-Picture with which to watch videos in a floating window while you are using another application. This is something you can do with other paid apps. The trick is use some specific browsers instead of Chrome or Safari. They are perfectly normal, safe and legal browsers, so you don’t need to go around installing modified versions of YouTube that are going to become a problem for your privacy. There are three very popular browsers that you can use for this, which are Brave, Firefox and Vivaldithe latter with the extra of being a European alternative. You can find these browsers both in the official application store of your mobile phone, and you can also download them to your computer. Brave is the best option for mobileas it allows you to use PiP mode to have the video play in an overlay window while you do other things. Vivaldi, on the other hand, only removes the ads, which is no small feat either. Just remember, you have to use YouTube from the browsernot from the app, entering m.youtube.com. For background playback With Brave, you’ll need to turn it on in the app’s settings. For this you will have to enter the configuration, and in the section Multimedia. Here activate background playback. For the computer any of the three options are goodsince they will allow you to watch YouTube without ads. This is due to the internal blockers they have. In Xataka Basics | How to use Gemini to summarize YouTube videos or ask questions about their content on Android

There is a canary in the mine that is reminiscent of the subprime crisis: people in the US paying in installments for their supermarket purchases

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The United States faces a disturbing financial phenomenon that is beginning to spread throughout Europe: 91.5 million people finance their purchases with interest-free deferred payment services, and 25% of them use them for something as basic as filling the refrigerator. Defaults continue to grow: 34% in 2023 42% this year. The alarm does not come from pessimistic analysts, but fromNigel Morris, co-founder of Capital One and investor in Klarna. Someone who built an empire by understanding exactly how much financial stress the average American can endure before going bankrupt. Why is it important. In addition to the data itself, because the majority of these loans do not appear in traditional credit histories. Regulators call it “phantom debt.” A bank may consider someone who is drowning on five simultaneous microloans between Klarna, Affirm and PayPal solvent. The system flies blind. Morris sums it up: “If I’m a BNPL provider and I don’t look at credit agency data, I’m completely unaware that someone may have taken out ten of these loans last week.” And that is exactly what is happening. Between the lines. BNPL dangerously replicates pre-2008 logic: debt concentrated in vulnerable borrowers, packaged and sold to investors who believe they understand the risk. Elliott Advisors bought Klarna’s UK portfolio for $39 billion. KKR agreed to acquire up to $44 billion in BNPL debt from PayPal. The difference with the crisis subprime is that much of that debt remains invisible to the financial system. In Xataka The secret business behind your interest-free purchases: this is how El Corte Inglés turns your installments into financial gold The contrast. The Biden Administration attempted to regulate BNPL like credit cards. Trump backed down in May after pressure from the industry, revoking 67 rules. Days later, the Financial Protection Bureau published a surprisingly optimistic report: customers repaid their loans 98% of the time. The discrepancy with the 42% real delinquency rate reveals the problem: no one really knows what happens when someone manages several simultaneous accounts. Yes, but. By not reporting to the credit agencies, these companies prevent their customers from building a history to access cheaper credit. “Some companies don’t want that to happen because they don’t want the consumer to graduate,” Morris acknowledges. It’s part of the business model: keeping users trapped. And Europe is not immune. Klarna has been operating as a licensed bank since 2017 and has expanded its model to large Spanish shopping areas. The integration with Apple Pay and Google Pay makes it as simple as bringing your mobile phone closer to the dataphone. What started as a niche payment option is becoming integrated financial infrastructure. {“videoId”:”x9b3a8a”,”autoplay”:false,”title”:”IF YOU SHARE A TENTH OF THE CHRISTMAS LOTTERY you have to KNOW THIS… 😓 #shorts”, “tag”:”loteria”, “duration”:”50″} turning point. Morris does not predict a collapse, but vigilance is urgently needed. In the United States, signs are accumulating: rising unemployment, end of student loan moratoriums, accelerated deregulation… The combination creates conditions where problems could escalate quickly. And when consumer debt becomes unsustainable, the pain spreads. Also even the investors who financed this ecosystem. In Xataka |The data that revives the ghosts of Spain and the real estate bubble: €8,000 of average debt for each tenant Featured image | appshunter.io (function() { window._JS_MODULES = window._JS_MODULES || {}; var headElement = document.getElementsByTagName(‘head’)(0); if (_JS_MODULES.instagram) { var instagramScript = document.createElement(‘script’); instagramScript.src=”https://platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js”; instagramScript.async = true; instagramScript.defer = true; headElement.appendChild(instagramScript); – The news There is a canary in the mine that is reminiscent of the subprime crisis: people in the US paying in installments for their supermarket purchases was originally published in Xataka by Javier Lacort .

There are so few mechanics on the market that Ford is taking radical measures, like paying them $120,000

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In the United States, and in general in the main Western economies, the manufacturing industry faces a serious problem: there is no specialized labor to fill the vacancies that are leaving who retire. Jim Farley, CEO of Ford, has stressed in an interview for the podcast Office Hours: Business Edition that his company has “5,000 mechanic vacancies. A workshop with an elevator and tools, and no one to work in it. They charge 120,000 a year, but it takes five years to learn how to do it.” This lack of training is the weakest link in the chain for Ford and the majority of the industrial sector. Global talent crisis. One of Trump’s slogans when he came to power is to reindustrialize the country. However, for many billion dollar investment that I get for build huge factorieswill fall on deaf ears if there are no well-trained employees to produce. This problem can be extrapolated to any country in the world. During his podcast appearance, Farley lamented: “We have over a million vacancies in critical jobs: emergency services, trucking, factory workers, plumbers, electricians and technical trades. It’s very serious.” The situation is not exclusive to Ford. According what was published by NPRwith data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, in the US there were almost 500,000 unfilled jobs in the manufacturing sector, even with a rising unemployment rate that stood at 4.3%. This is an indication that, although there are people who are unemployed, companies cannot hire them because they simply do not have the training to do the jobs they need. In Spain, the problem is also significant. The BBVA Foundation estimated that the manufacturing industry had lost a quarter of its employment since the beginning of the century, and there are an estimated 100,000 vacant jobs in the industry, in a country with 2,613,200 unemployed, according to data of the EPA’s third quarter of 2025. Again, this mismatch is due to the gap between the training of the workforce and the needs of companies. Importance of Vocational Training. Farley insists that the current reality demands a serious commitment to professional training, since “to learn how to disassemble a diesel engine from a Ford Super Duty truck requires at least five years.” For this reason, the CEO points out that without a determined effort to strengthen technical training schools and offer competitive wages, the American industrial economy—and that of any country that aspires to industrialization—is doomed to failure. The lack of investment in this type of training is one of the main causes of the crisis. Farley mentioned that “we don’t have trade schools. We are not investing in educating a new generation like my grandfather, who started with nothing and built a middle-class life for his family (working on the assembly line of a Ford factory).” The Spanish FP is a success story. In Spain, Vocational Training has experienced a big change thanks to investment policies, greater training offers and the involvement of companies in the training of those who will later become their employees. In fact, according to the report ‘Infoempleo Adecco 2024‘, in 46.96% of the job offers published during the last year, candidates were asked have a vocational training degree. The FP student report of the Ministry of Education, Vocational Training and Sports reveals that, in the 2022-2023 academic year, 1,085,259 students were enrolled in Vocational Training degrees. That represents an increase of 32.6% compared to the last five years. The demographic factor is going to make it worse. A key factor in the number of vacancies is the template aging: Many workers with decades of experience are retiring and there are not enough young people trained to take their places. This is a problem that not only affects the industrial sector, but also affects the entire labor market, both in the public sector as private. Seeing that young people are showing greater interest in Vocational Training invites us to think that the number of vacancies in sectors with vacancies due to lack of trained labor at present will not increase, but the big question is whether this generational change will arrive on time and to the areas that are needed. As and as highlighted Jensen Huang, the new millionaires will not be engineers or AI experts, but electricians, carpenters, bricklayers or bus drivers. Incentives: “Pay them more”. Never have three words held as much truth as those spoken by Joe Biden when someone asked him how to end the labor shortage: “Pay them more.” Pay them more. In his attempts to attract qualified labor to his assembly lines, Ford’s CEO adopted a strategy that the company’s founder, Henry Ford, implemented in 1914: raise salaries. That’s why Farley boasted of paying $120,000 to his mechanics. Just as he told in an interview with Walter Isaacson, Farley came to that conclusion when during labor agreement negotiations, some of his workers approached him and commented: “Young people don’t want to work here. Jim, you pay $17 an hour and they’re very stressed.” To combat this, Ford approved a 25% pay increase for its workers over four years, ensuring everyone has a fair wage and a viable career future. have a professional opportunity with a good salary and job stability is the best incentive for young people to spend five years of their lives training for a profession. In Xataka | 47% of the unemployed in Spain are over 50 years old. The problem is that many will not return to work until they retire. Image | ford

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